Sunday, January 5, 2014

Not all sex offenders have "raped" or "fucked kids," people.

My glorious return to I Love a Sex Offender was hastened by comments I read on Facebook underneath a groundbreaking news story by Pulitzer-Prize winning Anna Canzano. She braved the perilous Oregon sidewalks to hide behind a tree and ambush a dangerous sex offender who was daring to walk around IN PUBLIC in the middle of the day, the NERVE!! Her brave and thought-provoking line of questioning was inspired by the proven, extremely effective Facebook regulation that prohibits sex offenders from having Facebook accounts. This of course is because research clearly shows that child sexual abuse has severely declined recently and by all accounts it is due to this courageous Facebook rule. This insatiable predator has done the unthinkable by opening a Facebook account, and as we all know the only reason for this was to communicate with all the three-year-old Facebookers, Anna jumped in to save us all and asked the incredulous monster why he was refusing to comply with Facebook's extremely effective policy.(Just in case there is someone out there stupid enough to believe any of that prior paragraph, that. was. entirely. sarcasm. The opposite of everything I wrote is true. I swear to God, if someone ever uses it as a source to back up crappy sex offender laws, I will die laughing and we can all make fun of them. Anyway...)

This is nothing new for Can -'t Come up With Anything Original -zano - I'm pretty sure that her entire career relies on exploiting public safety while pretending to be "on your side" (lmfao) nor is the ever-increasing ignorance reflected in the following comments, and it's high time this gets addressed.

And this highly intelligent commenter but more intelligent responder:

Poor Lloyd and Joann. They've fallen for the misconception that everysingleperson on the registry has raped someone (obviously, their attitudes aren't the result of intentional ignorance or hatred.) I suppose they are also unfamiliar with Washington College of Law's 2010 report on registerable sex offenses among all 50 states (it's 282 pages long,) which details every last offense that can get a person on the sex offender registry. There's also another ...........And since this is the country of Adam Walsh Act Is the Best Ever Despite Reports that it Sucks, we have to remember that there have been dozens of additional registerable offenses added since then (I like to remind everyone that we have a woman in our Facebook group who is on the registry for "custodial interference." Pretty sure she never raped anyone.)

These two pages are for Alabama. Out of the 23 registerable offenses, which include some goodies such as "Production of obscene material," "Public display of obscene bumper sticker, sign or writing," and "Promoting Prostitution," only 2 are for rape - one for first degree, and another for second degree. Only 6 explicitly have to do with children, and of those 6, include "Transmission of obscene material to a child" and "Permitting or allowing a child to engage in production of obscene material." Those sound bad (and can be bad) but one must also remember that a "child," by legal definition, is usually anyone under the age of 18.

As in, someone whose eighteenth birthday is tomorrow. Or a few months away.

Several years ago, a vigilante used the registry to kill a sex offender who had since married his "victim," who was 3 months from legal age when they first had consensual sex. They had children together. He murdered the husband and father DIRECTLY due to the registry - and DIRECTLY due to the false belief that EV-E-RY-ONE on it has "raped or fucked kids." Now two kids are fatherless.

A "child" can be a 16 year old. Not with a creepy old dude - consenting with an 18 year old. It can be a 16 year old with a fake ID going into bars and clubs and hooking up consensually with a 21 year old who thinks she's 21.

The perpetrator can be 17 years old. The perpetrator can be 15. Or 14. 13, 12, even 11 or 10. The perpetrator, if a child, may be the victim of abuse themselves. They may be acting out in the only way they have ever been treated. They may not understand the serious impact their actions have on their victims. They probably need help. They don't need to be tossed away like society's garbage. After all, we are supposed to be protecting children - not just the perfect ones.

On a Facebook group entitled "FELONS NEED LOVE TOO!!!...AND JOBS...AND PLACES TO LIVE....AND SO ON," I posted about the importance of looking beyond the myths and understanding that better sex offender laws mean a safer, more stable society for all of us. Before long, two hecklers were posting about how they "didn't care about those pukes" and "didn't care about the statistics, only about justice for victims."

That's all well and good. You can have your hate and your supposed "care" about victims. But remember that ignoring facts and verified information means you DON'T care about children. People tell me to be more sensitive, but I'm sick of it. If you willfully ignore sex offender research and still pretend to care about children, you are a liar and a fraud. You care about yourself. Get out of your comfort zone and actually DO something to help kids - all of them - not just the easy ones.

When you condemn a sex offender, you condemn their family. You know, those "women and children" who are so important. If you are unwilling to even re-examine your personal opinions and emerge from your closed mind long enough to consider that you could be wrong, you don't care about children OR women. Let me ask again: is it ALL women and children that deserve to be protected - or just some?

Until someone has an answer for that, I will be in my lair thinking up more controversial stuff to rant about. -S

3 comments:

You bring reason to the craziness that the registry has become. I appreciate your dedication to the "cause" and your ability to put it into words. A member of my family will be on the registry soon for the next 10 years. His life is forever changed because he fell in love with a girl too young by four months. He is in prison now at the age of 19. He didn't rape anyone. He didn't hurt anyone. His "victim" was a girl who consented to sex. Will he ever be able to find a job or a place to live? I don't know. I just know that this registry is not the place to put him or those like him. He will always carry the label of "sex offender" with him. He will forever be called a "rapist", though no rape was involved. America has become a very sad place. Thank you for your blog, USA FAIR, and your posts on Facebook. I am a huge fan!

You go girl! I love reading informational truths that you write versus the complete ignorance and stupidity that people write trying to pretend to know everything on this subject just to make themselves feel better and try to make themselves look important. I get so enraged by those people I can't even express myself and I am glad to see you can. I appreciate you standing up for s.o.'s intelligently.

AMEN!!! But the people posting are the result of self serving politicians making self serving laws that benefit nothing and no one but their own sorry selves. The instil and promote fear for votes. THESE ARE THE REAL PREDATORS!!!!! Is there a registry for Senators like George Maziarz of NY who prostitutes himself daily for votes?????? Ignorant public are born from ignorant politicians making feel good laws born from the fear they create that help no one and increase lack of safety!!!! POLITICIANS ARE THE PROBLEM IN EVERY AREA OF OUR LIVES AND UNTIL THE PUBLIC GETS TIRED OF BEING TAKEN FOR FOOLS THEY WILL CONTINUE TO PUT US ALL AT RISK!!!! TIME TO WAKE UP PEOPLE!!! Thank You Shana for being a voice for SMART laws!!!